Project Description

Team Building & Collaboration of Product Owners

Time

01/2016

Abstract:

My mandate was to support a PO team to achieve better personal acknowledgement and to foster their internal collaboration.

Duration:

3 days

Role:

Agile Coach

Description:

An IT service provider delivers solutions to distribute SW applications on different technical platforms (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS). The company is on the agile transition journey since 1,5 years.
A team of product owners (POs) each responsible for a one or two dev teams manage technical debt maintenance and new features development according to market resp. customer demands. The ageing structure was from younger colleagues to very experienced ones. My mandate was to support the PO team to achieve better personal acknowledgement and to foster their collaboration. I chose a solution-oriented approach:

We don't want to unveil historic quarrels the 1000-th time again and again. We concentrate on building the future right now, instead.

Thus, I split the assignment into two parts: (1) personal appreciation and motivating, and (2) solution-focused exercises with LEGO Serious Play to identify the next steps.

Part 1: Personal Appreciation and Motivating

To open communication and to get insights on personal motivation we did the Super-Heroexercise: each PO introduced herself metaphorically as a super hero figure and reflects the colleagues as super heroes.
This part on the personal motives and engagement was closed with the Management 3.0 Moving Motivators exercise.

Part 2: Solution-oriented exercises

In four levels, we identified solution criteria and the steps needed to achieve them. These levels were divided to individual and group reflections.

LSP-01 Individual model: „Imaging the Future I“

Each participant was asked to build a LEGO model according to the questions:

„Image, you collaborate in your team optimal. By which criteria you would identify this ideal state?“

Then each participant used her model to shared her individual insights and thoughts with the group metaphorically.

LSP-02 Shared model: „Imaging the Future II“

In this exercise the participants were asked as a group:

„Agree on as many common characteristics of the optimal future you see in the models.Build with these elements a shared model reflecting the commonalities.“

LSP-03 Individual model: „Realising the Future I“

The participants were asked to reflect personally:

„What will YOU do to accomplish this state/these states?“

Then each participant used her model to shared her individual commitments with the group metaphorically.

I had planned to close the workshop by each participant identifying the support needed to achieve her goals and getting the promise of one or more of the group for help.

However, the participants detoured in discussing the old quarrels. Since they toke in account the new insights of the workshop this a valuable closing as well.